Active enterprises in Canada, 2019

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Release date: November 10, 2021
Infographic: Active enterprises in Canada, 2019
Description: Active enterprises in Canada, 2019

Active enterprises consist of all enterprises that had either revenue or employees at any time during the reference period.

In 2019, there were 1,143,610 active enterprises in Canada with one or more employees. Of those, 64.6% had four employees or less.


Table 1
Table summary
This table displays the results of Table 1. The information is grouped by Province or Territory  (appearing as row headers), Percent (%) (appearing as column headers).
Province or Territory  Percent (%)
Newfoundland and Labrador 1.3
Prince Edward Island 0.5
Nova Scotia 2.4
New Brunswick 2.0
Quebec 20.9
Ontario 37.6
Manitoba 3.2
Saskatchewan 3.1
Alberta 13.3
British Columbia 15.5
Territories 0.3

The largest number of high-growth enterprises were in the construction sector.Note 1


Table 2
Table summary
This table displays the results of Table 2. The information is grouped by Sector (appearing as row headers), Percent (%) (appearing as column headers).
Sector Percent (%)
Construction 15.9
Professional, scientific and technical services 11.5
Manufacturing 10.1

The professional, scientific and technical services industry contributed the most to enterprise births and deaths...


Table 3
Table summary
This table displays the results of Table 3. The information is grouped by Sector (appearing as row headers), Births in 2019 (%) (appearing as column headers).
Sector Births in 2019 (%)
Professional, scientific and technical services 17.7
Construction 14.4
Transportation and warehousing 8.9

Table 4
Table summary
This table displays the results of Table 4. The information is grouped by Sector (appearing as row headers), Deaths in 2018 (%) (appearing as column headers).
Sector Deaths in 2018 (%)
Professional, scientific and technical services 16.5
Construction 14.1
Retail trade 9.6

...and also had the largest share of one- and two-year survivors.Note 2


Table 5
Table summary
This table displays the results of Table 5. The information is grouped by Sector (appearing as row headers), One-year survivors (2018 to 2019) and Two-year survivors (2017 to 2019), calculated using Percent (%) units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Sector One-year survivors
(2018 to 2019)
Two-year survivors
(2017 to 2019)
Percent (%)
Professional, scientific and technical services 17.4 16.7
Construction 14.1 14.9
Health care and social assistance 9.8 9.8

Sources: Statistics Canada, 2021, Entrepreneurship Indicators Database; OECD, 2017, Entrepreneurship at a Glance 2017, OECD Publishing, Paris.

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